An improved simplified high-sensitivity quantification method for determining brassinosteroids in different tissues of rice and Arabidopsis

Quantification of brassinosteroids is essential and extremely important to study the molecular mechanisms of their physiological roles in plant growth and development. Herein, we present a simple, material and cost-saving high-performance method for determining endogenous brassinosteroids (BRs) in model plants. This new method enables simultaneous enrichment of a wide range of bioactive BRs such as brassinolide, castasterone, teasterone, and typhasterol with ion exchange solid-phase extraction and high-sensitivity quantitation of these BRs based on isotope dilution combined with internal standard approach. For routine analysis, the consumption of plant materials was reduced to one-twentieth of previously reported and the overall process could be completed within 1 day compared with previous 3 to 4 days. The strategy was validated by profiling BRs in different ecotypes and mutants of rice (Oryza sativa) and Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), and the BR distributions in different model plants tissues were determined with the new method. The method allows plant physiologists to monitor the dynamics and distributions of BRs with 1 gram fresh weight of model plant tissues, which will speed up the process for the molecular mechanism research of BRs with these model plants in future work.

Biosynthesis of a cholesterol-derived brassinosteroid, 28-norcastasterone, in Arabidopsis thaliana

A metabolic study revealed that 28-norcastasterone in Arabidopsis is synthesized from cholesterol via the late C-6 oxidation pathway. On the other hand, the early C-6 oxidation pathway was found to be interrupted because cholestanol is converted to 6-oxocholestanol, but further metabolism to 28-norcathasterone was not observed. The 6-oxoBRs were found to have been produced from the respective 6-deoxoBRs administered to the enzyme solution, thus indicating that these 6-oxoBRs are supplied from the late C-6 oxidation pathway. Heterologously expressed CYP85A1 and CYP85A2 in yeast catalysed this C-6 oxidation, with CYP85A2 being much more efficient than CYP85A1. Abnormal growth of det2 and dwf4 was restored via the application of 28-norcastasterone and closer precursors. Furthermore, det2 and dwf4 could not convert cholesterol to cholestanol and cholestanol to 6-deoxo-28-norcathasterone, respectively. It is, therefore, most likely that the same enzyme system is operant in the synthesis of both 28-norcastasterone and castasterone. In the presence of S-adenosyl-L-methionine, the cell-free enzyme extract catalysed the C-24 methylation of 28-norcastasterone to castasterone, although the conversion rates of 28-norteasterone to teasterone and 28-nortyphasterol to typhasterol were much lower; this suggests that 28-norcastasterone is the primary precursor for the generation of C(28)-BRs from C(27)-BRs.